World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the
history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us from
that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge. While World
War II continues to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians,
as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to maturity
largely unaware of the political, social, and military implications of
a war that, more than any other, united us as a people with a common purpose.

Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about
the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy,
and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the
next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the nation's 50th
anniversary commemoration of World War II. The commemoration will include
the publication of various materials to help educate Americans about that
war. The works produced will provide great opportunities to learn about
and renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been
called "the mighty endeavor."

World War II was waged on land' on sea, and in the air over several
diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following
essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles
that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are designed
to introduce you to one of the Army's significant military feats from that
war.

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History
by Clayton R. Newell. I hope this absorbing account of that period will
enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II.

GORDON R. SULLIVAN
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff

Egypt-Libya

11 June 1942-12 February 1943

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the British
had been fighting German and Italian armies in the Western Desert of Egypt
and Libya for over a year. In countering an Italian offensive in 1940,
the British had at first enjoyed great success. In 1941, however, when
German forces entered the theater in support of their Italian ally, the
British suffered severe reversals, eventually losing nearly all their hard-won
gains in North Africa.

Even though the United States had not yet entered the war as an active
combatant, by the time General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of
the German Army's Afrika Corps, began his offensive against the
British Eighth Army in Libya in March 1941, the American and British air
chiefs were already discussing American support for the British Eighth
Army. Rommel's rapid and unexpected success in the Libyan desert forced
British and American staff officers in London to accelerate their planning.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers also agreed that the British
might need American support in the Middle East. Overall theater responsibility
would continue to be British, but the President recognized that a British
collapse in Egypt would have far-reaching implications and approved contingency
measures to prepare for American support to the theater at a future date.

Strategic Setting

The Middle East, a large, vaguely defined area comprising the land bridge
between Europe, Asia, and Africa, was a key area of consideration in the
development of British-American strategy early in World War II. At the
beginning of the Egypt-Libya Campaign the region included Libya, Egypt,
Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Arabia, Iraq, and Iran.
Although limited geographically to the two countries designated in its
name, the events comprising this campaign extended throughout the Allied
Middle East Theater of Operations. The area constituted a crucial link
in the worldwide communications systems connecting the various Allied theaters
of operations. Loss of the air and sea routes through the Mediterranean
Sea and the Suez Canal that led to China and India would have required

[3]

A period of relative inactivity. (DA photograph)

Allied shipping to travel far to the south around the tip of Africa,
thus lengthening the time required to supply American and British forces
in the China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater of Operations.

In addition to maintaining their global lines of communications, Allied
leaders had several other reasons to consider the Middle East strategically
important. Its domination by Germany and Japan would have further isolated
China, the Soviet Union, and Turkey. Equally significant, the loss of Iran
and Iraq would have meant that the area's oil, the lifeblood of mechanized
warfare, would flow into Axis tanks, planes, and ships, rather than those
of the Allies.

In early 1942 the key to Allied control of this vital region lay in
Egypt. The British Mediterranean Fleet based its operations in Alexandria,
the British Middle East Command maintained its headquarters in Cairo, and
the Suez Canal provided an essential Allied line of communications to the
CBI and Pacific Theaters of Operations. All of these facilities would have
been vulnerable to Axis control had the Afrika Korps and the Italian
Army been able to push the British out of northern Egypt.

The battle for control of Egypt centered in Cyrenaica, a desert region
in northeastern Libya just west of Egypt. Control of Cyrenaica,

4

or the Western Desert as it was more popularly known, would have provided
the Axis with a secure line of communications for resupplying its forces.
For three years the war in the Western Desert consisted of a series of
advances and retreats which came to be known as the "Benghazi Handicap"
by the British soldiers who alternated between pursuing and being pursued.

The so-called Handicap took place along a narrow strip of barren desert
land in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. A single highway
ran along the coast connecting the major port cities of Tripoli and Benghazi
in Libya and Alexandria in Egypt. Scattered between these three cities
were numerous smaller ports which could be used to supply ground forces
from the sea. Off the coastal highway to the south there was ample room
for the maneuver of mechanized forces, and there was virtually no civilian
population outside the cities along the coast. These factors combined to
produce a tactical pattern which repeated itself in the ground operations
of both sides: infantry forces moved along the coastal road to secure a
port to resupply the mechanized forces for a flanking movement into the
desert to clear the road to the next port, which would be secured by the
infantry in order to resupply the mechanized forces, and so forth.

The campaign which established this pattern began in September 1940
when an Italian army under the command of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani attacked
the lightly held British frontier outposts in Egypt, drove them back, and
established fortified defensive positions along the coastal highway well
inside Egypt. In November the British launched a counteroffensive that
by mid-December had cleared Egypt of all Italian units. By February 1941
Cyrenaica was in British hands, but their hold was tenuous. British forces
in Egypt and Libya were short of ground transport, possessed badly outdated
air and ground equipment, and had to make do with very little shipping.

In early 1941 Germany joined forces with Italy and began offensive operations
throughout much of the Mediterranean. Air attacks from Luftwaffe units
that had deployed to the Mediterranean in January reduced the British use
of the sea. Rommel arrived in Africa during February and by March was ready
to launch a campaign against the British line in Libya. In April the Germans
then invaded and conquered Greece, and in May they added Crete to their
Mediterranean holdings. In a desperate attempt to hold Greece and Crete,
the British had diverted extensive forces from Africa, thereby significantly
reducing their already limited capabilities in the Western Desert.

By the end of May the Axis offensive had driven the British back into
Egypt, although they did manage to hold on to the port of Tobruk

5

in Cyrenaica. Possession of the besieged port effectively thwarted any
further offensive drives by Rommel, who needed its facilities to resupply
his mechanized forces. When the British attempted an offensive of their
own in June, however, Rommel decisively repulsed it.

By November the British Eighth Army, now armed with American tanks,
was once again ready to take the offensive in the Western Desert. Its attack
began on 18 November, and nine days later elements of the Eighth Army relieved
the garrison which had held Tobruk since the British withdrawal in May.
During the first week in December, German and Italian forces finally began
withdrawing under British pressure, eventually occupying positions in El
Agheila in western Libya. Although the ground forces on both sides settled
down in defensive positions, each began preparations to resume the offensive.
Rommel was ready first. On 21 January 1942, he opened his second offensive
in the Western Desert, moving east in a series of rapid advances, broken
only by periods of relative inactivity while resupplying from the coastal
ports. Logistics thus dictated the pace of the Axis offensive, and every
mile it moved east lengthened a tenuous supply line. But the German and
Italian logistics difficulties were not severe enough to halt the attack.
When the Egypt-Libya Campaign opened for the United States, the British
Eighth Army was retreating out of Libya toward Egypt in yet another eastbound
lap of the Benghazi Handicap.

Operations

By June 1942 it was apparent that if the Allies were to hold Egypt,
and by extension the Middle East, the British Eighth Army needed time to
reorganize, refit, and reinforce. To gain that time, the German-Italian
offensive had to be stopped or at least slowed. Since all Axis supplies
had to cross the Mediterranean from Europe to Africa and then move along
the coastal highway to the fighting units, interrupting that flow of men
and materiel into Libya became the primary Allied strategic objective.
To attain that objective, the British were eager to obtain American heavy
bombers to reinforce the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Middle East. By early
1942, however, British problems in the Western Desert were but one of a
number of worldwide U.S. concerns. The eventual buildup of American air
power in the Middle East Theater of Operations actually had less to do
with British desires than with a circumstantial combination of Japanese
success in Burma and American assistance to the Soviet Union.

Well before the United States declared war on Japan, the Lend-Lease
Act of March 1941 effectively made America an economic bel-

6

Italian antiaircraft gun. (DA photograph)

ligerent. The act came about primarily as a result of President Roosevelt's
desire to assist the British war effort. At the time lend-lease went into
effect, British requirements for aid overshadowed those of other nations.
But the German invasion of the Soviet Union and deteriorating Japanese-American
relations soon widened the demand for lend-lease assistance, and in late
1941 the United States began organizing military missions to coordinate
the aid. In October the War

7

U.S. planes bomb oil fields.(USAF photograph)

Department established a mission for North Africa to supervise lend-lease
support to the British in the Middle East. In November Brig. Gen. Russell
L. Maxwell, head of this North Africa military mission, opened his headquarters
in Cairo. In an apparently unrelated move, two months before Maxwell's
arrival in Cairo an American military mission opened in China where events
there would contribute to introducing American air power to the Middle
East.

In May 1941 the President had decided that the defense of China was
vital to American security, making that country eligible for lend-lease
assistance. To coordinate this aid, the War Department established the
American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA) in September. The Japanese
occupation of China, which had begun in 1937, by 1941 had virtually sealed
off the country from the rest of the world. American lend-lease materiel
reached China by way of the Burma Road, a narrow, twisting route through
the mountains that connected Lashio, Burma, with Kunming, China. In May
1942, while the British were suffering serious reverses in the Western
Desert, Japan's successful invasion of Burma closed this last route for
lend-lease aid into China.

8

During this same period the United States was supporting another hard-pressed
ally, the Soviet Union. As a result of the German invasion of Russia in
June 1941, the United States had established a mission to coordinate lend-lease
operations for the Soviets. One of the resupply routes was through the
Middle East-along the so-called Persian Corridor-and the U.S. Military
Iranian Mission began coordinating operations along this route from its
headquarters in Baghdad on 30 November 1941. When the Japanese closed the
Burma Road in May 1942, almost half of the Allied aid to the Soviet Union
was moving through the Persian Corridor.

The Army Air Forces (AAF) began planning for a buildup of American air
power in the Middle East in January 1942 in response to a request from
the British Chief of the Air Staff. At that time American planners projected
June as the earliest date that any American forces could reach the theater.
AAF planners had to reconcile providing American planes (including necessary
maintenance support) to the RAF with organizing and equipping American
air combat units. The dilemma was clear: as a simple equation the greater
the number of American units sent to the Middle East, the fewer aircraft
available for the RAF. The RAF believed that providing its combatexperienced
squadrons with new aircraft would produce more rapid results than waiting
for the AAF to organize new units, but the AAF wanted to get on with building
a strong American air force with minimal diversions. The situation demanded
compromise, and by the end of Maythe RAF and the AAF had agreed
on a schedule for providing American air combat units to support the RAF
in North Africa beginning in October 1942. When Axis successes in the Western
Desert that summer caused that agreement to fall apart, however, American
planners and decision makers then turned to exploring options that would
provide immediate support to their British allies.

As it happened, a special group of B-24s found itself in the Middle
East in early June 1942. The so-called Halverson Detachment, named for
its commander, Col. Harry A. Halverson, consisted of twenty-three B-24D
Liberator heavy bombers with hand-picked crews. HALPRO, the detachment's
code name, had been designed and trained to bomb Tokyo from bases in China,
but by the time it was ready to deploy Japanese control of the Burma Road
had made it highly improbable that the detachment could be logistically
supported in China. General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army,
therefore sought and received permission from Roosevelt to divert the detachment
to Egypt for a surprise raid on oil refineries in Ploesti, Rumania. The
idea behind the Ploesti raid was to upset German prepa-

9

rations for their expected summer offensive against the Soviet Union.

With the President's approval of the scheme, HALPRO moved to Khartoum,
a city in the Sudan 1,700 miles upstream on the Nile from Cairo, to await
further instructions. Shortly after Halverson and his detachment arrived
in Khartoum, they received orders sending them to Egypt in preparation
for the Ploesti raid. On 11 June 1942, the U.S. Army's Egypt-Libya Campaign
opened with thirteen of Halverson's

10

four-engine heavy bombers taking off from an RAF field at Fayid near
the Suez Canal to attack the Rumanian oil refineries. On 12 June, after
inflicting what turned out to be negligible damage on the target, four
of the planes landed in Turkey, where they were interned. The others made
it to various airfields in Syria and Iraq.

Although the raid had little effect on the German offensive into the
Soviet Union, it did have psychological significance for the Allied cause.
As the first American air raid conducted against a strategic target in
Europe during World War II, it had an impact similar to that of the Doolittle
bombing of Tokyo two months earlier. The strike symbolized America's entrance
as a military combatant into what had been a primarily European contest.
It also demonstrated that American military forces had the ability and
willingness to strike at the heart of their opponent's industrial power.

As Halverson's planes returned from their raid in Rumania, the British
Eighth Army suffered further reverses in Libya. In just two days, 12 and
13 June, the German-Italian forces destroyed some 230 British tanks during
the Battle of Gazala, greatly increasing American concern about British
prospects of holding Libya and Egypt.

As they were struggling in the desert, the British were also trying
to resupply their garrison at Malta by sea, and they requested American
heavy bombers to support that effort. The War Department gave Halverson
the mission, and on 15 June he sent seven of his planes to assist the RAF
in attacking an Italian fleet which had put to sea to intercept a British
resupply convoy on its way to Malta. Although the American bombers inflicted
only minimal damage on the Italian fleet, the RAF later credited the raid
with keeping two Italian battleships in port for the remainder of the summer.
The mission proved to be first of many that HALPRO would fly in support
of British forces in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, General Marshall had begun to establish a stronger American
command and control organization for the Middle East theater. On the day
after the Ploesti raid' he created U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East
(USAFIME) to replace both the North African Mission in Cairo and the Iranian
Mission in the Persian Corridor. On 16 June the War Department named General
Maxwell as the first commander of USAFIME. The next day the War Department
informed Maxwell that the Halverson Detachment would remain in Egypt as
a part of USAFIME. With the China mission overtaken by the Japanese closure
of the Burma Road' HALPRO had thus become part of the campaign in the Middle
East by default, and eventually it would become the nucleus of the U.S.
Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF). In addition to

11

HALPRO, Maxwell's new command included the U.S. Army personnel previously
assigned to the North African and Iranian military missions.

USAFIME's specific responsibilities were vague, as was its charter.
The message instructing Maxwell to activate USAFIME designated him as the
"initial" commander, who would "probably" be replaced should it become
necessary to send "an appreciable number of combat troops" to the command.
The ambiguous tone of the message reflected American uncertainty over the
type of assistance the British would ultimately need. Initially the War
Department planned to send about 6,000 American support troops to USAFIME,
the first of whom would arrive in October 1942, but there were no plans
to provide any combat forces.

On the same day Halverson and Maxwell learned that HALPRO would remain
in Egypt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was traveling to the
United States to discuss Allied strategy with President Roosevelt. In light
of the recent British reverses in the Mediterranean, the British Prime
Minister was particularly eloquent in his pleas for additional American
support, especially in the form of heavy bombers. Churchill's request presented
the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) with something of a dilemma. On
the one hand, they wanted to conserve American resources in the hope of
launching decisive air and amphibious actions against the German forces
in western Europe by 1943, a course of action the Soviets strongly supported.
But on the other hand, if the British were unable to hold the Middle East,
then the Persian Corridor supply route to the Soviet Union, plus the existing
air

12

ferry route to India and China and the oil now supplied from Iraq and
Iran, all stood a good chance of being lost to the Axis, a situation that
would be highly detrimental to any Allied efforts in western Europe. The
JCS, in effect, faced a choice between providing support to the British
in Egypt, the key to the Middle East, or holding American forces in reserve
for a future attack on the European continent, hoping that the British
alone could somehow hang on to Egypt.

Complicating this choice was Churchill's unbending desire for an Anglo-American
amphibious landing in French North Africa in late 1942. In combination
with an offensive by the British Eighth Army in Libya, such a stroke would
have the goal of ending Axis domination of the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
But such a plan also supported the argument for holding American ground
forces and materiel out of the more immediate fight in the Western Desert.
Yet without increased assistance the likelihood of a strong British Eighth
Army offensive into Libya or anywhere else seemed very unlikely.

The JCS straddled the fence. Although Churchill was persuasive enough
to inspire brief interest in a plan that would have sent Maj. Gen. George
S. Patton, Jr., and an American armored division to Egypt to bolster the
British Eighth Army, the JCS limited American troop commitments in the
theater to air units. Seeking compromise, Marshall proposed sending some
of the Army's latest equipment to the British forces in Egypt: 300 M4 Sherman
tanks, 100 self-propelled 105-mm. artillery pieces, and 150 men qualified
to maintain and repair this equipment, which had only recently entered
the American inventory. The President immediately approved the proposal,
and the Prime Minister quickly accepted it. The British especially appreciated
the Sherman models because their 75-mm. guns were mounted more effectively
in turrets instead of in sponsors (protrusions mounted on the side of the
hull). The Sherman gave theBritish a tank approximately equal to
the German panzers facing the Eighth Army. Although the War Department
immediately began to implement the agreement, the distances between the
United States and Egypt and the acute shortage of Allied shipping meant
that the tanks, artillery, and support troops would not actually arrive
in Egypt until early September.

British and American staffs also developed plans to move additional
air combat units and their ground support elements into Egypt. By early
July they had agreed to move six U.S. air groups to Egypt: three bomber
and three fighter. As with the tanks and artillery, it was some time before
the first of these American air combat organizations were operational in
Egypt.

13

In anticipation of the arrival of the American air groups, the War Department
sent Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the U.S. Tenth Air Force
in India, to Cairo for temporary duty to assist the British. His orders
instructed him to take as many planes as he could to Egypt. After managing
to police up nine B-17s (described as "near cripples"), he arrived in Cairo
on 25 June, along with 225 assorted staff officers, fliers, and mechanics.
When these forces arrived from India, Maxwell, as commander of USAFIME,
established the U.S. Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) and named Brereton
its commander. The new command initially comprised the Halverson Detachment,
the Brereton Detachment (the nine bombers from India), and a few transport
and liaison aircraft previously assigned to the small air section of the
old North African mission.

Brereton, an experienced aviator, was understandably surprised to find
himself subordinate to Maxwell, a brigadier general with no aviation background.
But he may also have been aware of Maxwell's appointment as an interim
commander who would probably be replaced when substantial American combat
forces arrived in the theater. Brereton initially regarded both Maxwell
and USAFIME as somewhat superfluous, believing a direct relationship between
his own organization and the British a more sensible and efficient arrangement.
When Maxwell and Brereton both appealed to Marshall for guidance, the Chief
of Staff left the command organization unchanged. He sent them a brief
message expressing his expectation that they would work together in harmony
and implied that they had better things to do than worry about rank. Both
officers replied immediately with assurances of mutual cooperation. Their
initial coolness toward each other did not affect the support they provided
the British, and Maxwell and Brereton shortly developed a cordial working
relationship.

USAMEAF started small, but with the experience already gained by the
North African mission in studying the tactical and logistical problems
of the British, Brereton was able to coordinate effective support almost
immediately. The situation in front of the British Eighth Army was deteriorating
rapidly; Rommel had captured Tobruk on 21 June, and the Axis offensive
was continuing to make progress toward Egypt. As early as 30 June Brereton
had directed the B-17s which he had brought from India to move their operations
to Palestine, while the B-24s of the Halverson Detachment continued to
fly their missions from Fayid in Egypt. But both units flew day and night
bombing missions against the Axis' increasingly inadequate supply lines,
concentrating their efforts against the port of Tobruk. The missions were
small when compared to what the Allies were able to put into the air

14

later in the war; no more than ten American bombers flew together at
one time, and most missions were even more modest. Nonetheless, the bombing
put further pressure on Rommel's tenuous enemy supply lines as his offensive
finally reached its culminating point at El Alamein. By the end of July
both sides had settled into defensive postures on the ground to rest and
await reinforcements.

As the fighting in the desert reached a temporary halt, the American
materiel shipped from the United States in late June began to arrive. The
first American planes flew into Egypt by the end of July, and ground support
personnel and equipment began to arrive by ship in early August. In the
same month the American and British governments officially agreed to mount
Operation TORCH in November 1942 to relieve the increasing German pressure
on the Soviet Union and to remove, once and for all, the Axis domination
of North Africa.

When the Americans and British came to an agreement on TORCH, they also
debated the possibility of sending air support to the Soviet Union. Against
the advice of the War Department, which feared that such an effort would
weaken support to the British in Egypt, President Roosevelt agreed to provide
an American air transport group and a heavy bomber group to a new combined
Anglo-American air force that would support the Soviet Army in the Caucasus.
Negotiations dragged on until December 1942, when it became apparent that
Soviet concern over having Allied forces near their oil reserves in the
Caucasus overrode their desire for air support. During the negotiations,
however, the Allies prepared to provide the promised support, and Brereton
organized a bomber group from his meager USAMEAF assets to deploy to the
USSR. When the Soviets finally decided they did not require Allied air
support, the newly organized 376th Bombardment Group stayed in USAMEAF.

Even as the American fighter and bomber groups promised in June became
operational in the theater, the focus of Allied attention moved from the
eastern to the western portion of North Africa in anticipation of Operation
TORCH. This change of focus restricted the growth of USAMEAF. As early
as 8 August Brereton was told that because of other "important projects,"
it was unlikely that the air forces at his disposal would be further increased
beyond the six air groups already en route. Although USAMEAF was second
in priority for support in the Mediterranean, Allied shipping shortages
dictated that most of the available carrying capacity went to support TORCH.

Despite the prospect that USAMEAF would remain a relatively small and
now secondary force, Brereton energetically pressed ahead supporting the
British. He took advantage of his excellent relations

15

with the British Western Desert Air Force to draw on RAF help to introduce
newly arrived American air combat units to the nature of the air war in
North Africa. The heavy bombers of the Brereton and Halverson detachments
(now combined into the 1st Provisional Group, under Halverson's command)
had been flying with the British for some time, and drawing on that experience,
the 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy) which arrived in mid-August, was able
to go directly into action. The newly arrived medium bombers and fighters
were the units that benefited from further training from RAF instructors.

When the 12th Bombardment Group (Medium) and the 57th Fighter Group
arrived in the theater of operations, they entered a highly cooperative
type of air warfare in an unfamiliar desert environment. Initially, they
were integrated into comparable RAF formations, allowing them to observe
firsthand the complex techniques of air-ground coordination that the British
had developed during their years of fighting in the Western Desert. For
American airmen, this was their first experience coordinating close air
support with ground forces. British techniques soon proved popular with
American fliers, and they became instrumental in liberating both the RAF
and the AAF from the direct control of ground commanders.

By late 1942 the commanders of the British Eighth Army and its RAF counterpart,
the Western Desert Air Force, agreed that ground and aviation command elements
at the army level would function best if they worked as equal partners.
Air and ground staffs in the evolving British system shared the same headquarters
facilities and living quarters. The result was a truly joint command where
neither the ground nor air commander held ultimate authority. The techniques
of joint command seemed to work particularly well in offensive operations,
as demonstrated during the renewed British offensive in October. Brereton
reported to Lt. Gen. Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, Chief of the AAF, that joint
ground-air command arrangements were of utmost importance. He emphasized
that the British system of cooperation derived from a natural sympathy
and understanding between air and ground commanders and urged its adoption
by the American leadership.

Essentially the British joint system allowed the air commander to exploit
the peculiar capabilities of his units to the mutual benefit of both air
and ground forces. Aircraft were not tied to specific ground units. This
allowed the available air power to be concentrated for maximum effect reflecting
the changing character of the battle. The ground support elements of RAF
units in the Western Desert were highly mobile and could move rapidly between
airfields as the tactical situation dictated. Ground support could thus
be sequentially positioned at

16

the airfields located most advantageously for supporting the land battle.
By October, as the

British prepared to resume the offensive at El Alamein, USAMEAF had
established the IX Bomber Command in order to effectively coordinate the
activities of all heavy bombers in the theater. Although it initially controlled
only the American heavy bombers in the 1st Provisional and the 98th Groups,
those units constituted 80 percent of the heavy bombers then available
in the Middle East. Subsequent agreements with the RAF put the British
heavy bombers of the 160 Squadron under the control of the IX Bomber Command
as well.

To gain experience in handling air forces in support of a fast-moving
offensive operation, USAMEAF attached an advance element to the forward
headquarters of the RAF's Western Desert Air Force as it prepared to support
the El Alamein offensive of the British Eighth Army. This advance element
became the Desert Air Task Force Headquarters in late October. The task
force, which remained in existence until the end of the Egypt-Libya Campaign
in February 1943, exercised administrative control over the American air
forces supporting the British Western Desert Air Force.

While USAMEAF was maturing in North Africa, its higher headquarters,
USAFIME, evolved rather more slowly. The responsibilities of the Services
of Supply (SOS), USAFIME, had been increasing steadily as more American
planes and crews arrived in the theater. Initially SOS, USAFIME, developed
an ambitious construction program to support a large buildup of Allied
forces in Egypt. But available Allied shipping could not simultaneously
support both this construction program and the growing American air presence
in the theater. Priority went to air force personnel and equipment, and
the larger support projects were deferred.

Further delays followed. The arrival of a large contingent of support
troops scheduled for August had to be canceled to provide shipping for
the ground elements of the air groups that had flown their planes to North
Africa in July. By mid-August SOS, USAFIME, had only about 1,000 personnel
assigned, and by early November there were still less than 3,000. Although
some 6,000 additional men were en route or at least scheduled for transport
to the theater, most did not actually arrive until early in 1943. Supplies
and construction material were likewise slow in arriving. As a result of
these delays, by the end of 1942 only about half of the planned Allied
construction projects in Egypt had been completed. By then, however, the
British Eighth Army was back in Libya, and the Axis threat to the Middle
East was over.

17

As the British successfully moved west, USAFIME turned its attentions
to other parts of the Middle East. In November, Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews
assumed command of USAFIME, replacing Maxwell. Andrews was an experienced
airman, and one of his first acts was to establish the Ninth Air Force
to replace USAMEAF. Brereton assumed command of the new organization and
established the IX Air Service Command, which joined the IX Bomber Command
and the IX Fighter Command as the major subordinate headquarters of the
Ninth Air Force. The 376th Bombardment Group, originally organized to support
Soviet forces, became part of the IX Bomber Command. As was the case with
the Halverson Detachment, the 376th flew its first combat missions not
in support of its original mission but over the deserts of North Africa.

As USAFIME and the Ninth Air Force went about their various reorganizations,
events on the western shores of North Africa had shifted Allied attention
away from Egypt and Libya. On 8 November 1942, Operation TORCH, the Anglo-American
amphibious invasion of the western portion of North Africa, began, and
the Axis forces found themselves squeezed between two Allied offensives.
But even though TORCH received first priority for troops and materiel,
operations in the Western Desert continued. The British, with American
support, pushed west through Libya until February 1943, when the Northwest
African and the Middle East theaters merged. The U.S. Army's Egypt-Libya
Campaign ended on 12 February 1943, when the Allied forces finally succeeded
in driving all Axis forces out of Libya.

Analysis

The Egypt-Libya Campaign was one of the smaller, less well known U.S.
Army campaigns of World War II. Its significance, however, cannot be measured
simply by counting Army forces involved. The campaign made a major contribution
to Allied success in World War II by laying a firm foundation of Anglo-American
cooperation for the later, much larger combined endeavors on the European
continent.

Strategically, the United States had to balance support to the British
in North Africa with growing demands for help from other Allies in other
theaters. The need to react quickly and decisively to the rapidly deteriorating
British position at the beginning of the campaign gave the American high
command experience in the flexible deployment of forces. The Halverson
Detachment and the 376th Bombardment Group had been designed and trained
for specific

18

missions elsewhere, but both units quickly and successfully adapted
to a different role in North Africa.

Tactically, the air-ground teamwork the AAF learned by working with
the RAF provided the embryo of the techniques adapted during the Allied
advance across Europe two years later. Given the existing state of technology,
organization, and experience, air power was still quite limited in its
ability to provide direct air support for individual ground commanders.
Although the air forces were theoretically free to move throughout the
theater wherever they were needed, in reality communications limited their
range. The existing radios simply did not provide effective long-distance
communications, and even communications between pilots and tactically engaged
ground commanders were extremely problematic. Pilots also could not clearly
distinguish between friendly and enemy ground forces from the air. But
the effort to develop effective, direct, close air support had begun.

Logistically, the success of the Eighth Army's offensive in October
1942 made the completion of many of the remaining planned American support
projects unnecessary. The American assistance effort, however, had been
significant, and its results did play a major role in the British autumn
campaign. American tanks, artillery, and motor transport operated by British
troops contributed to the breakthrough and exploitation at the Battle of
El Alamein. The American equipment and support provided by the SOS, USAFIME,
helped give the British the superior mobility and logistical ground support
required to finally push the Axis forces out of Egypt and Libya. The fact
that many of the American bases in the Middle East were never completed
after the British victory at El Alamein, on the other hand, did lead to
a decline in the importance of USAFIME before it ever reached its projected
full strength.

In the final analysis, although the U.S. Army provided no ground combat
troops to the Egypt-Libya Campaign, the close cooperation between American
and British staffs set the tone for Anglo-American cooperation for the
rest of the war in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of Operations.
American leaders had agreed that the Middle East was a British responsibility
but that American support was essential for it to remain in Allied hands.
Both parties clearly understood and followed through on the necessity to
work together to defeat a common foe in a theater critical to Allied worldwide
goals.

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Further Readings

There is no single authoritative source on the Egypt-Libya Campaign,
although a substantial amount of information is available in the U.S. and
British histories of World War II. In the Center of Military History's
U.S. Army in World War II series, the most useful volumes are Richard M.
Leighton and Robert W. Coakley's Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940-1943
(1955) and Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell's Strategic Planning
for Coalition Warfare: 1941-1942 (1953). Two volumes in The Army Air
Forces in World War II series, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James
Lea Cate are also helpful: volume 1, Plans and Early Operations-January
1939 to August 1942 (1948) includes the background and first part of
the campaign, while volume 2, Europe: TORCH to POINTBLANK-August 1942
to December 1943 (1949) covers its conclusion. The British perspective
is available in two volumes from the Mediterranean and Middle East series
in the United Kingdom's History of the Second World War, edited by Sir
James Butler. The campaign opens in volume 3, British Fortunes Reach
Their Lowest Ebb, by Major-General I. S. O. Playfair (1960) and concludes
in volume 4, The Destruction of the Axis in Africa, by Playfair
and Brigadier C. J. C. Molony (1966).